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Morgan's father, Charles Bill Morgan, was born into a prominent East Coast family that included successful military men, politicians, and influential businessmen. He studied to be a mining engineer; then in 1867, he sailed for San Francisco, California, to speculate in mines and oil. He returned the next year to marry Eliza Woodland Parmelee, the favored daughter of Albert O. Parmelee, a cotton trader and self-made millionaire. The wedding was in Brooklyn, New York, where she had grown up. As a wedding present, Parmelee gave his daughter an envelope full of money so that she could raise a family in comfort. He indicated that more money would follow.[4]

The newlyweds traveled to San Francisco and settled downtown in a family-oriented but luxurious residential hotel. In April 1870, a son was born and named Parmelee Morgan. On January 20, 1872, Julia Morgan was born. Two years later, the Morgans moved across the San Francisco Bay to Oakland, to live in a large house they had built in the Stick-Eastlake style at 754 14th Street at its intersection with Brush Street at the downtown edge of what is now known as West Oakland. (This Victorian-era building has since been demolished.) Three more children were born to the family in Oakland. At every new birth, grandfather Parmelee paid for the Morgans to travel to the East Coast by transcontinental train so that the grandchild could be christened in the traditional family church in New York.[5]

Charles Morgan was not successful in any of his business ventures, so the family relied upon money from grandfather Parmelee. Eliza Morgan ran the household with a strong hand, providing young Julia with a role model of womanly competence and independence. In mid-1878, Eliza took the children to live near the Parmelees in New York for a year while Charles worked in San Francisco. In New York, Julia was introduced to her older cousin Lucy Thornton, who was married to successful architect Pierre Le Brun. After returning to Oakland, Julia kept in contact with Le Brun; he encouraged her to pursue a higher education. In New York, Julia also got sick with scarlet fever and was kept in bed for a few weeks. As a result of this illness, throughout her adult life she was prone to ear infections.[5]

In July 1880, grandfather Parmelee died. Soon, grandmother Parmelee moved into the Oakland house, bringing with her the Parmelee wealth. This reinforced Julia's impression that women provided the foundation of social means.[6]

Morgan resisted her mother's suggestion that she have a debutante party to celebrate her availability for marriage. She argued that she should first gain a career. Her parents were supportive of this wish.

One of the engineering lecturers of her senior year was Bernard Maybeck, an eccentrically dressed architect who designed buildings that Morgan admired for their respect for the surrounding topography and environment. Maybeck mentored Morgan, along with her classmates Arthur Brown, Jr., Edward H. Bennett and Lewis P. Hobart, in architecture at his Berkeley home. He encouraged Morgan to continue her studies at the prestigious École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he had distinguished himself. She graduated from Cal in 1894 with a degree in civil engineering; she was the only woman in her engineering class. Morgan gained a year of work experience building with Maybeck, then traveled to Paris in 1896 to prepare for the Beaux-Arts entrance exam. The school had never before allowed a woman to study architecture, but in 1897, it opened its entry process to women applicants, largely because of pressure from a union of French women artists, whom Morgan characterized as "bohemians".[6][7] Morgan met with these women and was exposed to their feminist views; they discussed how to increase the influence of women in professional careers.

In principle, the school admitted the top 30 candidates. It took Morgan three tries to get in: on the first try, she placed too low, while on her second try, in 1898, although she placed well into the top 30, the examiners "arbitrarily lowered" her marks.[7][8] After more than a year of further study, tutored by François-Benjamin Chaussemiche, a winner of the Prix de Rome, she finally passed the entrance exams in the Architecture Program, placing 13th out of 376 applicants, and was duly admitted.[7] However, she could study only until her 30th birthday, as the school prohibited older scholars. In early 1902, as her birthday approached, Morgan submitted an outstanding design for a palatial theatre. This earned her a certificate in architecture, making her the first woman to receive one from the school; she did so in three years, although the usual time of completion was five years (that was how long Maybeck took, for example).[6][7][9] She stayed in Paris long enough to collaborate with Chaussemiche on a project for Harriet Fearing, an ex-New Yorker who contracted for a "grand salon" design for her residence in Fontainebleau.[10]

Upon her return from Paris, Morgan took employment with San Francisco architect John Galen Howard, who was supervising the University of California Master Plan. Morgan worked on several buildings on the Berkeley campus, providing the decorative elements for the Hearst Mining Building and an early proposal for Sather Gate. She was the primary designer for the Hearst Greek Theatre.[6] Howard told a colleague that Morgan was "an excellent draftsman whom I have to pay almost nothing, as it is a woman."[10] She saved her money and made plans to work on her own, accepting important side projects.[6]

In 1904, Morgan was the first woman to obtain an architecture license in California. She opened her own office in San Francisco while living at the old family home in Oakland, where the staff knew her as 'J.M.'. Between the years of 1907 and 1910, she partnered with Ira Hoover, former draftsman of Howard. Morgan reestablished an individual private practice in late 1910. She was employed as the architect of many buildings at Mills College. Another of her earliest works was North Star House in Grass Valley, California, commissioned in 1906 by mining engineer Arthur De Wint Foote and his wife, the author and illustrator Mary Hallock Foote.

In 1919, Hearst selected Morgan as the architect for La Cuesta Encantada, better known as Hearst Castle, which was built atop the family campsite overlooking San Simeon Harbor. Morgan employed tiles, designing many of them herself, from California Faience.[11]

Morgan became William Randolph Hearst's principal architect, producing the designs for dozens of buildings, such as Phoebe Apperson Hearst's Wyntoon, which he inherited. The estate includes a castle and "Bavarian village" of four villas, all on 50,000 acres (202 km2) of forest reserve that includes the McCloud River near Mount Shasta in Northern California. She also did studio and site work for the uncompleted Babicora, Hearst's 1,625,000-acre (6,580 km2) Chihuahua, Mexico, cattle rancho and retreat.[12]

Julia Morgan's affiliation with the YWCA began when Phoebe Apperson Hearst recommended her for the organization's Asilomar summer conference center, a project she began in 1913. The Asilomar Conference Center, no longer YWCA but State-run, is still in Pacific Grove near Monterey, California. Morgan also designed YWCAs in California, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii.

Five of the Southern California YWCA buildings were designed by Morgan.[13] The 1918 Harbor Area YWCA (San Pedro, CA) in a Craftsman building is still standing, as is the 1926 Hollywood Studio Club YWCA. Morgan's Riverside YWCA from 1929 still stands, but as the Riverside Art Museum. Her 1925 Long Beach Italian Renaissance branch has been demolished. The "gorgeous" Pasadena YWCA is being acquired by the City for restoration and public use after several decades of decay.[13]

Morgan made many architectural contributions to the women's college Mills College in the East Bay foothills of Oakland, California. Like her work for the YWCA, they were done in the hopes of advancing opportunities for women.

Mills president Susan Mills became interested in Morgan in 1904 because she wished to further the career of a female architect and because Morgan, just beginning her career, charged less than her male counterparts.[14] Morgan designed six buildings for the Mills campus, including El Campanil, believed to be the first bell tower on a United States college campus.[14] El Campanil should not be confused with The Campanile, a nickname for Sather Tower, the clock/bell tower of nearby UC Berkeley. Morgan helped draft parts of the UC Berkeley campus under John Galen Howard, but the Sather Tower was not her design.

Although Morgan was highly respected as an architect, not much is known about her personal life. She was never married and had no known romances. She kept a low profile and lived modestly, in spite of her wealthy clientele. She gave no interviews and did not write about herself. She worked tirelessly on minimal sleep and food.[2] Intrigued with the gaps in Julia Morgan's life story, Belinda Taylor, wrote "Becoming Julia Morgan", a 2012 play in which Taylor imagines a plausible life story for Morgan.[16]

Morgan's other projects include the redesign of the landmark Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco after it was damaged by the earthquake of 1906. She was chosen because of her then-rare knowledge of earthquake-resistant, reinforced concrete construction.